It’s an understatement to say that it’s not easy to be a French patent litigator in transnational litigation, in any case a good dose of humor is needed: how many jokes have I heard about our jurisdictional system? Then you have to accept that France is almost systematically considered as the territory at the bottom…

Biologic drugs, many of which are antibodies, represent an increasing share of the pharmaceutical market. In recent years, numerous broad functional patent claims directed at therapeutic antibodies have come under attack for failing to satisfy the written description and enablement requirements. The proper scope of these requirements has divided the biopharmaceutical industry. In its latest…

Can natural justice outweigh statute, contractual confidentiality obligations and industry practice? Recently, the High Court of Delhi passed a decision in the heated FRAND dispute between InterDigital and Xiaomi concerning confidentiality clubs [1]. Read part 1 of this blog. 3. Key errors in the order of the Court I. Confidentiality concerns of InterDigital and its…

Can natural justice outweigh statute, contractual confidentiality obligations and industry practice? Recently, the High Court of Delhi passed a decision in the heated FRAND dispute between InterDigital and Xiaomi concerning confidentiality clubs. [1] The Court held that that Xiaomi’s employees must necessarily have access to InterDigital’s third party patent license agreements, so that Xiaomi may…

As reported in last week’s post, on 20 January 2021 Birss J handed down what may be his last first instance decision before his elevation to the Court of Appeal.  The first post on the judgment considered the issues of identifying the skilled person, insufficiency and infringement.  This second part considers the decision relating to…

I have the pleasure and the honor of welcoming today Professor Anne-Catherine Chriariny. Professor Chiariny teaches Patent Law and International Private Law at the University of Montpellier. She is notably the author of a famous doctoral thesis on international patent litigation awarded by the Prix Pierre Véron and the Prix Cercle Montesquieu in 2007, published in…

On 20 January 2021 Birss J handed down what may be his last first instance decision before he takes his place in the Court of Appeal.  If that turns out to the case then Illumina Cambridge Limited v Latvia MGI Tech SIA and others is a substantial judgment to mark this departure.  In this case…

In utility model cancellation proceedings, if a proprietor defends its utility model only with certain sets of claims, the Federal Patent Court generally has no reason to subject the subject-matter of individual claims to separate examination. However, the situation is different if the proprietor submits for decision a set of claims with independent claims that…

After having us recently hummed the Beatles’ Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da song with the TRUVADA case (see here), French case law is now flirting with New York gangs with a decision about a “Kit Crack” (not to be confused with the “Kit Kat”), reminding us the Notorious Big’s Ten Crack Commandments rap (listen here). In short: a new opportunity for…